


That Try Men's Souls

by EventHorizon



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Hair, Hurt feelings, M/M, Younger vs. Older
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-09
Updated: 2013-12-09
Packaged: 2018-01-04 02:49:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1075643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EventHorizon/pseuds/EventHorizon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lestrade has been carrying around some worry lately about his and Mycroft's relationship and decides to take steps to make things better... much to Mycroft's dismay...</p>
            </blockquote>





	That Try Men's Souls

**Author's Note:**

> In one of my head-canons, though Sherlock has his violin, Mycroft has his art... this story came from a small debate on who was the more drool-worthy: young Rupert Graves or mature Rupert Graves...

      “Gregory?”

      “Nope.”

      “Allow me in.”

      “Four letters.  Haven’t changed.”

      “I am very concerned about the… odor…”

      “Then go away and it won’t bother you.”

      “I am gravely worried you have somehow encountered a heretofore undiscovered chemical weapon in my home and are slowly deteriorating from the toxins.”

      “Nope.”

      “GREGORY!”

      “Can’t hear you.  Got plugs in my ears.”

      “If you are going to dissemble, please do so with some degree of believability.”

      “What’s the fun in that?”

      “Gregory Lestrade, I detect a completely inorganic chemical aroma that is undeniably corrosive and I want you out of there now!”

      “If you’d wait… three minutes… no make that six, gotta count rinsing, then I’ll be out.”

      “Rinsing?  You _are_ in the midst of a chemical hazard!  You will open this door NOW!”

      “Five minutes.”

      “My foot will be colliding with this door in ten seconds if you do not…”

      “Go make me some tea or something, why don’t you?”

      “GREGORY!”

      “Or whisky.  Getting a damned headache from all your noise.  Four minutes.”

      “You had best stand back lest you be injured when…”

      “And time!  Gotta rinse.  Hold off being the hero until I’m out of the shower, ok?  I want to see this.”

      “Insufferable!”

Mycroft timed the sound of water running and if the shower ran one second beyond three minutes he would be nursing a sore foot, replacing a door and providing a very sound spanking to one Detective Inspector, if Lestrade had not succumbed to toxic fumes.  Fortunately, with a few seconds to spare, the water was turned off and he could, with his ear pressed to the door, hear Lestrade exiting the shower, remove a towel for a vigorous rub and then that particularly sexy giggle that his Gregory normally only made when Mycroft wore something new and enticing in their bedroom.

      “Gregory, I have been very accommodating to your wishes, but now you simply must…”

      “Yeah, yeah… I’m ready.  Close your eyes.”

      “I think not.”

      “It think _so_ , now do it.”

      “I decline.”

      “Then I’ve got a new home.  Cozy… nice hot water.  Guess I can eat your loofah if I have to.  It’s a vegetable or something, right?”

      “Be warned, Gregory Lestrade, my patience is not bottomless and unless you desire your own bottom to feel the outcome of my patience running thin…”

      “Let you spank me once and now you’re fetishizing my bum.  Not that I’m complaining, mind you…”

      “GREGORY!”

      “Promise me you’ll close your eyes!”

      “As you wish.  However, I expect a thorough explanation for your behavior the moment you have emerged.”

      “That can be arranged.  Now, are they closed?”

      “Quite.”

      “Tight?”

      “You are within seconds of dire punishment, Gregory.”

      “Promise?”

      “GREGORY LESTRADE!”

      “Calm down, you great stork.  Here I come.”

Mycroft had endured thousands of hours of meetings with highly aggravating or combative opponents yet no one could cause his blood pressure to erupt as surely one very affable and strikingly handsome Detective Inspector.

      “Ok… open up.”

Mycroft let out a great sigh then opened his eyes to see… he had to be hallucinating.  The chemical toxins must have seeped through the door and infiltrated his brain tissue.

      “Well?”

      “What has happened?”

      “What’s wrong?  Don’t you like it?”

      “Gregory, what have you done to your hair?”

      “Gave myself a dye job!  Hah!  Isn’t it great!  Got the color just right, too; brings me right back, oh… years.”

      “Your hair…”

      “Goodbye to that tatty geezer hair and hello to my long lost and slightly slutty hair.  I’ll have to grow it out some more, like I used to wear it, but I’ve still got plenty to grow, don’t I?  May have gone grey, but at least all the little soldiers are still in formation.”

      “Your hair…”

      “Did something break in your head?”

      “It’s…”

      “Dark.  Just like in the old days.  Girl at the shop really knows her stuff, let me tell you.  Steered me right on this one.  And it wasn’t hard to do, just a little messy and, yeah, smelly.  But now I’ve got my old hair back and all I have to do is give it a bit of a refresh now and then and there you have it!  Gotta love modern technology.  Is hair color technology?  Ah, who cares when I’ve got a head of hair that could be used in the dictionary to define S-E-X-Y…”

      “It’s…”

      “Oh come on, Mycroft.  I’m beginning to think you don’t like it.”

      “I… can you change it back?”

      “FUCK!”

Lestrade pushed past Mycroft, hurling his wet towel against the wall of their bedroom and snatching clothes out of his closet, dragging them onto his body with a force that Mycroft was surprised didn’t rip the fabric.

      “Gregory, I am sorry…”

      “So what’s the problem?  I don’t know what else I can change, Mycroft.  Not easily, at least.  I can… maybe I can go to the gym, will that help?”

Mycroft had, surprisingly, never been shot, but he assumed that it must feel very much like what he was currently experiencing.

      “Gregory, what are you going on about?”

The ‘as if you don’t know’ followed Lestrade out of the bedroom as he stalked out, his face a mixture of anger and humiliation that ripped Mycroft’s heart from his chest and he was almost fearful to follow his partner because he had no idea what was plaguing the man.  All he _did_ know that it seemed very much to be his fault.  When his feet finally agreed to move, Mycroft hurried after Lestrade, finding him in the study, pouring out a nearly-lethal glass of something that Mycroft plucked from his fingers before Lestrade could take a sip.

      “Gregory, what in heaven’s name has you so distressed?  Have I… done something to upset you?”

      “Don’t want to talk about it.”

Mycroft watched Lestarde tug absentmindedly at a strand of his newly-darkened hair and had his hand knocked away as he reached out to take Lestrade’s fingers in his.

      “You _must_ talk to me, Gregory.”

      “You want to do this now?  Fine.”

Lestrade walked over to the large desk in the study that Mycroft used when he worked at home, opened a drawer, pulled out a folder and tossed it onto the desktop.  Photographs spilled out over the desk and Mycroft froze in place.

      “Want to tell me about these?”

      “I…”

      “Great answer.  You’ve got an entire folder of photos of me, _young_ me, hidden away in your desk.  I’ve been checking, too.  You must look at them a lot, because every time I take a peek, they’re in a different order.  Let’s see, I was I think… about twenty in this one.  That one was taken a few weeks after I turned 25.  I love this one.  Bright-eyed and eighteen.  This one, hell, it’s the odd man out, isn’t it?  That one’s from a holiday I took when I was, I think, right about thirty.  No, wait, here’s another.  I was twenty-eight or twenty-nine.  You’ve got dozens of photos here, Mycroft.  And not one, not _one_ , near my age now.”

      “You must let me explain.”

      “Go ahead.  And while you’re at it, how about adding an explanation for this.”

Lestrade walked over to the end table where a sketchbook rested.

      “I don’t usually pry, Mycroft.  Needed a pen and found the photos.  But… you’ve been sketching a lot lately and I decided to check it out.  Imagine my lack of surprise when I looked at your drawings.”

The sketchbook was flung across the room to impact the desktop, scattering the photographs and sending many onto the floor to stare up at Mycroft, as if adding their anger to that of their older self.

      “I always said you had talent and I can’t say that still isn’t true.  They’re good.  Really, really good.  You draw _young_ me beautifully.  And you’ve got a good imagination, too.  Not one nude photo in that bunch, but you did an amazing job on those couple of sketches where you just put my all on display.  Young face, young body… Have you ever done a sketch of me now?  I don’t remember seeing one.  Never caught you looking at me while you drew, but you apparently like looking at my old photos and making them your art.  I’m not good enough as I am now for your fucking pencils and paper, but I was then, apparently.”

      “Gregory…”

      “Haven’t been home much, either, have you?  Been awhile since we had some time together.  _Personal_ time, I mean.  And what was it for the last couple of functions you went to alone?  That’s right… I’d be bored.  Too bad you can’t take that guy in your photographs with you.  Put him in your bed while you’re at it...”

Lestrade threw himself onto the sofa and stared at the fire Mycroft always started when he’d thought they would be enjoying a quiet evening together at home.  An evening, he was pained to remember, that was quite unique in recent weeks.  Many, many recent weeks.

      “I don’t know what happened, Mycroft… but I don’t want to lose you, pathetic as that sounds.  I thought… I thought we were happy, but maybe… maybe you’ve gotten tired of my old face staring back at you every day.  I wouldn’t blame you, actually…”

Lestrade looked over at the photographs strewn over the study floor and his eyes clouded with a dark haze of regret.

      …Who wants to wake up and have to look at someone like me when you could be looking at someone like _him_ instead.”

Mycroft stood looking at the man he loved and wondered how he could have let things get so out of hand.  How stupid he had been…

      “I have no interest in anyone but you, my dear.  The you that sits here now, not any other you that may reside in the past.  I absolutely adore the face you are so cruelly maligning and I have an almost obsessive fascination with your hair… your real hair.”

      “Don’t lie to me, Mycroft.”

      “I would not dare.  You are the _only_ person to whom I do not lie.”

Mycroft walked towards a bookcase and drew out a large bound volume before settling on the sofa, leaving a respectable amount of space between himself and Lestrade.

      “We found each other late in life and turning back the clock for either of us exceeds even my capabilities.  And I do have a fascination with your young form, Gregory, I shall not deny that for a moment.  It is from that person that you were born, so I must love him dearly and passionately.  He is utterly magnificent and I do delight in rendering him in my own little way with a few lines on white paper.  However, he is not the man who owns my heart.  Only you do that, my dear, and you are the _only_ one who has ever held my love in his hands.  Perhaps this will demonstrate that to you.  It is to my shame that I have kept it secret for so long…”

Mycroft handed over the book to Lestrade who began flipping through the pages, moving more and more slowly as he progressed.

      “These… they’re me.  _Me_ me.”

      “I do sketch you, Gregory, though I will admit to an extreme lack of self-confidence as I do so.  I have not wished you to know, or _see_ , for fear that I would disappoint you.  I… when you sleep is my favorite time to indulge.”

And Lestrade saw that Mycroft was truthful in that.  The book was rich with drawings of him, but on most of the pages, whether alone or as part of a series of other sketches, was some representation of him asleep in their bed, on a sofa, in the chair he dragged outside during warmer months… this was not a simple sketchbook, either.  It was bound in leather like a book that was meant to be valued.  To have importance.

      “Do you see?  I am desperately in love with you, Gregory Lestrade and I have been grossly remiss of late in reassuring you of this simple truth.  It must have been quite difficult for you to endure my neglect, then find… I might have interpreted the situation quite similarly were I in your position.”

Lestrade looked through each page and Mycroft risked inching closer to his lover until he could look upon the pages and share them with his model.

      “So, you really don’t mind that I’m run down and wrinkly and grey and…”

      “Good heavens, Gregory!  You are not, as you seem to believe, a mummified, shroud-wrapped corpse.  You are still quite hale, both in body and mind and outshine everyone else in eyesight no matter where we find ourselves.  I also am well aware you have no difficulty performing your manly duties towards me.  When I am present to make myself available to you, that is… and I apologize that my presence has been sparse of late and my attentions to you have been few and far between.  But it is not because I crave a different you, a younger you… it is simply the demands under which my neck must bend.  At times they are onerous, indeed.  However, I fully intend to remediate my slights.”

      “Really?  What do you have in mind?”

      “A night to ourselves.  You shall have your book and I shall have mine.  The difference being that mine is still being created and I do plan on adding a few new pages to mine while we share our time before we retire to bed.”

      “And then?”

It was only at that moment, seeing his Gregory’s luminous smile, that Mycroft was able to let himself believe that his foolishness had found forgiveness.

      “I believe you purchased for me an exquisite outfit that I have yet to wear for you.  The one in that particular shade of blue that so favors my skin…”

      “And you’re going to make me wait?”

      “Anticipation is an aphrodisiac.”

      “But I got my hair done for the occasion and everything.”

      “Something we will remedy tomorrow.  I very hopeful that a qualified professional can restore your hair to its normal beauty.”

      “Then you owe me for one box of brunette.”

      “Will a cheque suffice?”

      “I’ll take a drawing.  Notice you don’t have one in there of me in _all_ my glory.”

      “Are you offering to pose?”

      “I don’t mind the idea of lying back and letting you caress me with your eyes.”

      “I shall get my pencils.”

      “Nope.  I’ve got reading to do.  What was that you said about anticipation?”

      “I have no recollection.”

      “I have to wait for my blue silk, you have to wait for my life modeling.

      “What a rapscallion you are.  ‘These are the times that try men’s souls,’ I believe is the expression.”

      “I like tit for tat better.”

      “Succinct.  And you do have such luscious…”

      “What a filthy mind.  Which is why I love you… great minds think alike.”

      “Then may I retrieve my pencils now?”

      “Oh fine.  But you’re sketching in your pretty new togs.”

      “I would have it no other way.”


End file.
